All posts tagged ‘ITunes’

Duck Duck Moose has always been slightly in front of the pack. Early on in the days of iOS apps they developed a little musical app called Wheels on the Bus which is well known in Pre-K circles and continues to be a well recognized and successful app that demonstrates the some of the capacity of mobile devices to engage children in ways that support their learning and development.

GeekDad profiled Duck Duck Moose over a year ago, and since then they have continued to produce apps aimed at young children that support early learning and development around music, math and literacy in ways that are playful and engaging for children. Even more recently, Duck Duck Moose released an album on iTunes and it was this development we thought was worth another conversation. We now see a children’s app development team beginning to branch out into a different market and perhaps they are showing the way for how smaller independent developers can survive.

So, we put a few questions to one of the company’s co-founders, Caroline Hu Flexer, about how things have been developing and what we can expect from Duck Duck Moose in the future.

GeekDad: What has been most important in maintaining Duck Duck Moose’s early childhood focus and the quality of your work?

Caroline Hu Flexer: Looking at the world through a child’s eyes is the most important thing that we do. We spend a lot of time working with children, observing how they play, and testing our apps with them during our design process. We have a very collaborative, open-ended design process in which the three of us all contribute throughout. Our process is iterative which is the secret sauce to coming up with good ideas. It goes a little something like this: Observe children. Brainstorm. Prototype. Build. Test with lots of children and parents. Learn. Refine. Repeat all steps again. And again. And again. Because there are only three of us, we are able to continue to iterate until the end, and some of our best ideas often come at the end.

I’m only now beginning to grok the vast entertainment possibilities afforded by the family iPad. Mostly the kids and I use it to game or maybe do a bit of light reading, but Ruckus Media’s new My Little Pony storybook app has helped bridge the gap between the two. This is a particularly appealing arrangement for my three-year-old daughter who is both a bit too young for many of our family gaming activities and a genuine connoisseur of everything Friendship Is Magic-related.

Twilight Sparkle: Teacher for a Daypresents a nice opportunity for together reading, and it also boasts a pair of additional options. “Read to Me” narrates the tale (with character-appropriate voices) for kids looking to go it alone, and the “Read and Record” option allows beginning readers to record their own narration for each story page. These pages are beautifully illustrated and easy to navigate, and most feature hidden, touch-sensitive bonus sound effects and animation that truly add to the experience.

The story is regularly punctuated by activities such as mazes and “spot the difference” puzzles, which go a long way in breaking up the reading with some true interactivity. Still, the real crowd-pleaser, at least for my little one, is the app’s unique ending. After helping Twilight and her friends discover the history of Canterlot, players are asked to retell the story in the pony’s diary.

This is done by dragging words and images unlocked during mini-games into fill-in-the-blank sentences. Additional words can be unlocked upon multiple play-throughs. Or you can just do what my kid does and drag a random pony into each blank, resulting in some rather hilarious impromptu Mad Libs.

At $3.99 it’s a little on the higher end of app pricing, but for an engaging, well-produced licensed product it is certainly not too much to ask. And the fact that it’s a universal app means you can keep a copy tucked away on your iPhone for emergencies (e.g. long waits in restaurants and doctors’ offices).

Ruckus Media Group was kind enough to offer 10 free download codes to be awarded to the GeekDad readers. Simply fill in the form below with your name, email address and the reason that you and/or your kids enjoy the new series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic before midnight tonight for a chance to win. I’ll draw the winners at random, and each will be contacted via email. Much thanks goes out to the fine folks at Ruckus Media for their generosity, and those interested in this or their other applications are encouraged to connect with the team via Twitter or Facebook.

Three-DVD set Alan Parsons' Art and Science of Sound Recording reveals how to make magic in the studio.

Music is a big part of GeekDad and when I recently had the opportunity to interview famed producer and musician Alan Parsons, I jumped at the chance. In particular, I was curious about how someone who had established a certain notoriety for being a music obsessive (reflected in his award-winning work on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, The Beatles’ Abbey Road and his own Alan Parsons Project, among other credits) felt about a number of growing trends in the industry, particularly the ease of access to simplified recording tools on iPads and whether engineering holds the same importance as it once did when so much of the music we listen to today consists of lossy digital tracks played through cheap earbuds.

The timing is pretty much perfect, with The Dark Side of the Moon just having been released in a remastered form. Parsons has also recently released his own DVD collection, Alan Parsons’ Art and Science of Sound Recording. If you watch the trailer for the set on this website (scroll to the bottom of the page), you’ll get a sense for just how much Parsons sweats the details about recording minutiae.

There’s a pecking order when it comes to movies around our house. A very few are worth seeing in a theater, some are definitely rentals, some are worth buying the DVD (or buying a copy on iTunes) and a very few are worth shelling out for a Blu-Ray copy, in which case I always opt for the combo packs that combine Blu-Ray, a DVD and digital copy. Blu-Ray for the full experience, the DVD we usually give away to a friend, and the digital copy goes in the iTunes library. Nowhere in this equation does 3D enter into the calculation, mind you. But what happens when you buy the combo pack and lose the code for the digital media copy?

Don't throw it out until you redeem the code... Photo by Brad Moon

If this sounds like an unlikely scenario, then you don’t have kids. Or you’re more organized than I am, and the first thing you do is open the blue tinted plastic box, remove the paper insert with the digital unlock code and either put it somewhere safe or immediately download the digital copy. Or maybe you just BitTorrent the movie, in which case you probably think this whole issue is completely inane. Anyway, what happens when you lose that unlock code? I recently bought the combo pack for Thor and, the day after we watched the Blu-Ray version of the movie, I grabbed the disc with the digital copy to transfer the movie into iTunes only to discover that the insert was gone. The boys had been examining the movie case, but naturally no-one had seen the insert with the code. No luck on a search of the family room.

Obviously, I’m not the only one who’s had some issues here because, as it turns out, studios have websites you can turn to for help. I filled out the form on Paramount’s website, submitted it and the next day they sent a replacement digital code. Problem solved. If you’ve misplaced the digital code on any of your combo packs, here’s the contact info for some of the major studios. And if I could put forth a suggestion to the studios, I suspect this would happen a lot less if that digital code were actually printed on one of the discs, or embossed on the package or printed inside the cover —anything but on a paper insert resembling advertising that slips out when you open the box.

It is clear that over that time, applications have grown up and older in a very short time. As with all technology, mobile apps follow a general “Moore’s law trajectory” and quality (along with speed) is improving at an exponential rate. We have gone from apps that simulate simple real-world activities, like memory and flash cards to games that allow us to fling birds and onto beautifully designed 3-D environments through tools like the Epic engine.

The arrival of the iPad last year probably had the biggest impact on children’s and educational apps for mobile devices. Since then, we have seen app developers moving with alarming speed to get in first with an app that will “wow” parents and children.

This is not unusual. The iPad, combined with iTunes, is like opening up a big empty warehouse and saying, “People will buy things here, what have you got to sell?” This same process happened with the iPod Touch and iPhones. It is what stimulates the first wave of app development.

But, the first wave is almost over. Along with those rushing into the market place, coding quickly and (sometimes) planning poorly, there have been builders and developers working away quietly in their workshops creating apps that they believe in and have crafted to make people sit up and notice. They are the leaders of the second wave of apps, and they are beginning to arrive.

It is these apps that will really help transform the learning landscape for our children, as new apps begin to provide space to be creative, to share that creativity and provide experiences that can’t be had anywhere else. So, what will these second-wave apps look like?

I don’t know how you spent the extra hour gained over the weekend thanks to Daylight Saving Time, but I was taking care of a few outdoor winterizing odds and ends. Packing up the trailer and filling its plumbing lines with anti-freeze, that kind of fun stuff. I was also checking around the outside of the house for any areas that needed sealing when it struck me that this would be a perfect time to test the outdoor rock speakers OSD had sent. “Your neighbors are going to hate you,” the company rep predicted when she was picking out a set that would be a match for the size of my back yard.

OSD-RS840 Rock Speakers

A few weeks later, the poor UPS guy lugged the two rather large boxes to my front door. A pair of OSD-RS840s. These are not exactly compact (10 3/4″ x 20″ x 19″ and 20 lb each), although smaller versions are available for those who have less room to rock. However, they are pretty convincing looking as far as fake rocks go. Much better than models I’ve seen in stores. And this is coming from a guy who owns a rock hammer and knows how to use it. I also know my way around stereo equipment and the specs on these are pretty decent, especially considering the price point. An 8″ woofer, 1 1/2″ dome tweeter, 24hHz – 20kHz frequency response and 250W per speaker power handling. The speaker enclosures may not be in as optimized a form factor or material as traditional indoor speakers, but given the fact that they’re disguised as natural looking rocks, I think I can cut them some slack there. The cabinets are definitely thick and feel solid. They’re weatherproof and made to withstand water, salt and pool chemicals. When I asked about winter conditions, the rep said wind and snow are no problem, but components can freeze in extremes and covering with a bag during blizzard conditions might not be a bad idea. Personally, I think I’d take them out for the winter if you’re in a snow-prone area -they’re going to get buried under the white stuff anyway, so why subject glues and solder to constant freeze thaw cycles?

It’s not often that I am given a chance to review an app based on my favorite appetizer. This was my first thought when I was presented with a download code for Edamame Touch for the iPhone/iPod Touch. In the end, I discovered the title to be a quirky little game that, unlike its hearty inspiration, was a bit low on substance.

The gameplay of Edamame Touch couldn’t be simpler. You tap the bowl to get a pod, press the pod to remove the beans, touch the beans to “eat” them and then flick away the empty husk. What comes out of said pod, however, can sometimes be a little surprising.

Mixed in with your run-of-the-mill soybeans and the occasional mysterious missing bean are a number of notable aberrations. Some beans sport cutesy emoticon faces, while others are skinned in wholly un-legume-like majesty. From the sinister Franken Bean to the oddly enticing Bacon Bean, there are 24 of these themed beans to shock, delight and confuse.

After teaching my kids some fundamentals about computer architecture and the file system, I was able to introduce them to my favorite applications. I’ll describe them briefly here and write some other posts about how my kids have used them.

All of these applications are free to download, good for cheapo, ahem, cost-conscious geek dads like me. Furthermore, all of these applications run on Windows and OS X.

iTunes was one of the first applications we explored, mostly because my daughter wanted to move some music from CDs to her mobile phone. It’s very useful for ripping CDs and managing music, but we had to learn two non-obvious pieces of information.

First, we changed a setting so that CDs are ripped into MP3 files instead of AAC. On the Windows version of iTunes, choose Edit > Preferences… from the menu. On the General tab, click Import Settings…, then select MP3 Encoder from the list. This means that whenever you rip a CD, the songs are stored as MP3 files. It’s possible to generate MP3 files from AAC using iTunes, and it isn’t that hard, but I find it’s easier to just import to MP3 in the first place.

The second crucial piece of information is where iTunes actually places its files. We needed to find this so that we could copy files to my daughter’s cell phone. To find out where the files are, choose Edit > Preferences… from the menu. Click on the Advanced tab and you’ll see the location that iTunes is using for its files.

Some video game characters are destined for greatness. Gaming standards like Mario, Sonic, Samus and Master Chief have become veritable entertainment icons in their own right, with pop culture clout that far exceeds your 42″ LCD. But not everyone is cut out to be a plumber/doctor/go-kart racer/princess-saving adventurer. Some are just content to travel through time shooting evil right in its face. Barry Steakfries is just such a man.

I’ve only recently discovered the wonder that is classic children’s stories, read by famous voices, on CD audiobooks. They can keep your child spellbound and entertained for hours and you don’t have to get a sore throat reading them yourself. My little girl got the Roald Dahl’s Phizz-whizzing Audio Collection for her birthday this year, containing 3 of his most famous stories, spread over 8 CDs. She also got an iPod speaker dock (amazing sound quality from such a funny looking thing) to use with her Mum’s old iPod Mini. You’ve spotted the problem there haven’t you?

Of course, it’s as easy problem to get around, just rip the CDs onto the iPod and boom, you’re done. Except that there’s nothing more annoying than a single chapter of an audiobook coming up during a random assortment of the Muppets Greatest Hits.
Fine you say, use the ‘Join CD Tracks’ option in iTunes to make them all one file. Except that they’re on 2 or 3 CDs each and you also can’t easily move between the chapters or know what each one is called.